Questionable fire to a lonely heart
by Minatu-chan
Summary: She was a lonely girl, who wanted friends, but couldn't find the voice to talk to anyone. Kimiko found herself wondering if true friendship even existed... Has very little to do with the actual series. It's more like an AU. Potential romance, please review for some
1. Chapter 1

**Hello thur... I write stories on a whim. I may not finish this very quickly... =.=" Regardless, I hope you enjoy it~!**

**((fix)) Disclaimer- I do NOT own Psycho Busters... D':**

Chapter 1

After all the remembering, mostly due to Ayano's persistence and love for Kakeru, the group of friends was together again. Tomoe was alive, though in a wheelchair. Life as they knew it was perfect.

This was, of course, different for those outside their great wall of friendship. Kimiko was all alone, but maybe it didn't bother her anymore. She had been alone for all her life. She simply had acquaintances. She had an older brother and a younger sister. She also had a father, but that was all. Her family wasn't considered mere acquaintances in the same sense. They were her friends... her only friends. More than anything, Kimiko loved to pretend, to create worlds where she had friends.

Her nose was constantly in a book, when she wasn't studying. She read hundreds of books. She was even called names like "book worm" and "four eyes". She never could find it in herself though, to not care.

She cried herself to sleep, once again all alone in her inner sanctum, better known as her room. She was a lonely girl, who wanted friends, but couldn't find the voice to talk to anyone. Kimiko found herself wondering if true friendship even existed. When she saw Kakeru's troop of friends for the first time, she finally believed that there was, and they were the definition of it. It amazed her to her very core, but then her heart shattered as she realized that such a beautiful thing was untouched by her. She returned home only to cry some more. Such was the life of Kimiko, a desperately lonely girl.

She went to school everyday, looking simply the same. She appeared tired. No one worried for her; they didn't know her so there was no reason to even consider such an idea. She always carried a new book in her left hand. Some people thought she was left handed because of that, but she was right handed.

She often sang songs that pertained to happier people. Doing such made her feel happier, lighter. There were times that she read so late into the night that she wouldn't have to cry herself to sleep. This didn't happen every time though.

Kimiko also switched homes every couple of days. She spent Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at her grandmother's house that was in the rural areas outside of the city. Sometimes she spent weekends there too. She and her little sister were the ones who went to Grandma Ishi's house. She spent the other days at her father's house. Kimiko liked staying at her father's more. She found him to be nicer and the air was breathable at his house. Her brother was also at her dad's house everyday. Kimiko loved her father a lot.

She was rather scared of her grandmother. Grandma Ishi was the image of strength and strictness. Ishi whipped Kimiko for every mistake she made while treating Marika, Kimiko's younger sister, like a princess.

Kimiko knew fear like most children didn't. She would sit in her room late at night, spinning stories or reading a new novel. She knew not how to act around others. The only information she had on interaction was from books, some old and yellowed. She was very gentle natured and painfully shy. If someone were to say "hi" to her, she would freeze then stutter a reply.

Kimiko was often alone. She walked home from school with Marika. Marika was a very bossy person. She ordered Kimiko around and threw fits when she didn't get her way. Marika was quite the pain, but sadly, Kimiko didn't know the difference. She happily did as Marika bid. She would cook for her brother, Kyo, when he asked. She was practically the servant of the much more sociable siblings. She didn't realize this ever. She felt important when she was off doing these "favors" for them. She smiled and gleamed unlike ever before. She thought this was friendship.

Kimiko was a fairly sad girl overall. No amount of attention from her family could close the swirling abyss that was left by the absence of true friendship. She often cried until she finally decided that crying was weak. Kimiko then placed a brave face on and refused to cry, even when she placed the third pair of scars on her knees. Only tears fell from his emerald and brown hazel eyes. She simply stood up on the ground again and hobbled on the rest of the way home. Spots of blood showing up on her tan pants.

She entered the eighth grade as lonely as ever. Kimiko knew not what friendship was still. She still held a paperback in her left hand everywhere she went. She hummed tunes of classic rock songs when she believed nobody was listening. Kakeru's group still seemed a thousand miles away, somewhere she could never reach. There were many times she wondered why she even wished for such a thing to become a part of her heart and world.

About halfway through that year, Kimiko made her first friend. Her name was Etsuko. Etsuko wasn't exactly the best friend for someone to start off with. She wasn't a good kid and often was in trouble, but she was delightful and was kind to Kimiko. She taught Kimiko the art of sneaking and stealing with ease. This was something Kimiko would normally avoid, but she was so caught up in her joy of gaining her first friend that she over looked this crucial fact. The fact that Kimiko had chosen badly in making a friend. She didn't know better or even realized the difference. For all she knew, Kakeru and company were jerks as well. The one thing about Etsuko that was abnormal for a delinquent child was that she was nice. She acted crazy and loved to laugh. She was the opposite skin color of the pale Kimiko, yet they were great friends.

Whomever Etsuko was close friends with, soon became one of Kimiko's friends as well. She had one more friend now, and her new friend's name was Katsue. Katsue was just as bad as Etsuko, but she never was caught by a teacher. She, like Etsuko, was the opposite color skin of Kimiko. Katsue taught Kimiko even more about sneaking, but also when to become anger. She also showed Kimiko how to evaluate the value of someone else's words.

Though Kimiko had begun to realize that these two were not the best friends to have, they were the first real friends she'd ever had. She couldn't bring herself to cut ties with them.

That was until Etsuko was expelled and Katsue changed schools to remain with her best friend. Once again, Kimiko was alone, friendless.

**Please Review! I'm more tempted to write more if you do! :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**AHH! I just realized I totally forgot the disclaimer for the first chapter! ((stupid, stupid, _stupid_...)) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

**DISCLAIMER- I do not own Psycho Busters!**

Chapter 2

Kimiko knew that she was still an introverted individual. She still held an old and yellowed paperback in her left hand. Books were never far from reach for her. Kimiko also never read a book twice, doing such was a waste of time due to the thousands of other books available. Why read one a thousand times and be able to recite the entirety of it when you could've read many others and learned far more about society than that one had ever taught you?

Kimiko knew this philosophy quite well, and, in fact, lived by it. Hence the ever changing paperback that was held in her left hand. She was a lonely person, who knew a thousand ways to procrastinate without the help of other human beings. Kimiko had no friends. She often found herself gazing out at Kakeru and his friends, wishing so badly to be a part of their fun. In Kimiko's world, Kakeru and company were the center of the world. It was the one place she yearned to be a part of. Somehow, she knew that this was an impossibility.

She pushed up her red framed glasses and pushed up the long sleeves of her sweater. This action revealed the pale, almost nonexistent scars that ran up and down her pale arms. They faded and hid with her natural skin color, that was just how pale skinned she was.

Her brunette curls pushed behind her ears as she perched on the front stairs to the entrance of her house. She cracked open her intriguing book, '_Stardust_' by Neil Gaiman. She was halfway through the novel on Part 5, and Kimiko would surely finish it that night.

As any aloof child would, she spent more time alone than with anyone else. An alarming amount of people had come to her birthday party as well that year. The party consisted of her and about eight other girls who ended up playing with Marika instead of Kimiko. This didn't hurt her feelings, truthfully she had no preference for those girls anyway. Marika found it to be a grand time too.

Kimiko placed one foot in front of the other. The first day of ninth grade was upon her. She wasn't frightened, worried or anxious. Instead, she looked on at the class assignments blankly, a paperback hanging loosely from the fingertips of her left hand. She was in class 9-A. This was, of course, the class of students with a higher intellect. The scale went all the way down to D, being the least intelligent. Kimiko walked past the complaining kids without giving them a second glance. This was just as she always had done. She moved alone, talked to none and excelled in her classes.

Kimiko knew that she should most likely try harder to make friends. Clutching her new book, _The Scarlet Letter_ by Nathaniel Hawthorne, she stepped past Ayano, all of her bravery lost when she'd looked at her. Kimiko tightened her fingers around the book, upset by her lack of confidence. Ayano didn't seem to even notice her. Her eyes lit up, and she waved to someone else.

"Kakeru!" she called, running up to the brunette boy and hugging him. Kimiko's shoulders slumped, and Kimiko kept on walking. There was nothing she could do, it seemed. She stared at the ground, walking with no particular destination in mind. She didn't feel like going to class just yet. Kimiko bumped into someone and was knocked to the ground. She looked up into the face of Kaito, one of Kakeru's friends. Kaito was tall with spiky, dark brown hair. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"S-sorry!" she whispered, standing up quickly after picking up _The Scarlet Letter_ off of the ground. He shrugged as she hurried past him. He glanced back, noticing that no girls ran up to her to see if she was okay. It was like she was a ghost. Kaito rubbed the back of his head, wondering if she was when his thoughts were interrupted.

"Kaito! We're in Class B together!" Ayano yelled, smiling and waving to him. He turned to her and Kakeru and walked over to them.

"Hey, _lovebirds_, so we're all in class B again this year?" Kaito asked the two. Ayano and Kakeru blushed, and Tomoe giggled in amusement.

"Don't call us _that_…" Ayano said, despite her embarrassment.

Kimiko sat down in her homeroom and cracked open her book. She reentered the sad world of the young mother in _The Scarlet Letter_. Her homeroom class was quickly over, and she moved on to find her first period class. It seemed that this year, everything would be merely the same as the ones before.

X _ X

Kaito left their last period faster than usual. He found that class to be a complete waste of time. His brain continuously tracked back to the "ghost" he'd bumped into earlier. What was her name? What class was she in? Would he see her again?

"Kaito! Wait up!" Ayano called after him.

"Ayano, let him go. He probably has something on his mind," Xiao Long said to her. His fairly long black hair fell into his eyes, and he quickly pushed it back into place. She sighed. Kakeru took her left hand in his right, giving her a reassuring smile.

Kaito shoved his books into his locker. He hadn't seen that girl since before school. He swung his backpack over his shoulder and slammed his locker closed. As soon as he turned around, his eyes landed on the unmistakable brunette curls. There she was in the middle of the hall, trying to weave her way through the crowd. Kaito pushed his way through the random students in attempt to catch up to her. He reached out to her, tapping her shoulder lightly. She almost dropped her book in surprise.

"Hey, sorry for running into you earlier. My name is Kaito," he said with a goofy smile. She turned and looked at him with wide eyes, her red framed glasses sliding down her nose a bit. She pushed them back up habitually.

"H-hi," she stuttered, blushing in embarrassment.

**Please Review! Those things make me super happy! :)**


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